The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, June 12, 1898, Page 22

22 THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, JUNE 12, 1898. HOW DRUGS POISON MEN It is a device intended to show the action of the pulse- when af- fected by nicotine, morphine, alcoohol and other drugs. sphygmograph, or in plain English a ‘“pulse measurer.” It is called a When ad- justed to the wrist it accurately registers each pulse wave and leaves a tracing for reading the result of the register. HE latest toy of the physician is a little device intended to show the action of the pulse. *“Pulse- writing” 1s’ what the name means in plain English. Dr. Carleton Simon of New York has demonstrated by the sphygmograph how various phases of emotion affect the heart. “I believe most thoroughly in the val- ue of the sphygmograph,” said Dr. Si- ing the most value in determining the normal condition of the he the circu- lation and piratory organs as well as the eff them The doctor then proceeded to prove the truth of his words by putting the sphygmograph to the test upon some subjects vided for the purpose. First a t » was ordered up to the , and with several sus- es at the queer little in- on the table beside him with an inward t of stimulants upon que “Well, my man,” sald the doctor, long is it since you have had a \ week,” replied the weary one. ve been doing time on the island,” [OJOJOXO] PO he added, evidently feeling that some explanation was needed. “Well, will you have adrink of whisky now, just to show how the stimulant affects your pulse?’ asked Dr. Simon. The man's eyes glistened and he drew a deep breath of anticipation as ‘hu lremafl;?d emphatically, if lacon- cally: uld I? Search me,” and he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “It is much better,” said Dr. Simon, as he carefully measured out four ounces of whisky in a graduated medi- cine glass, “to take a subject who is used to big drinks. There will be less danger of bad results, and the fact that this ‘man has had no alcohol in his sys- tem for a week will show us a satisfac- tory difference in his pulse wave before after taking the stimulant. « t yet, my man,” he added, as the cct reached for the glass. see the tracing which your pulse will give before the drink.” While talking the doctor adjusted the delicate instrument on the ma wrist by means of rubber bands. Next he held a strip of aluminum about half an inch wide and six inches long, over the flame of a candle until the surface was blackened. Then he moved the machine with infinite patience until it was di- rectly over the man’s pulse. A delicate little needle was at once set throbbing to and fro, recording the beats of the artery. A clock arrange- Tow to Solve HE Federal clpher codes during the Civil War were very slmple’ and yet absolutely secret, arbi- | trary words being used to repre- | sent proper names, and also many ordinary words and military | phrases. The words of the entire body | of the dispatch, after being concealed | in this manner, were then arranged in | one of over a thousand possible com- | binations, the particular combination being indicated by a key word, and as | each combination had several ke)'j words it was not necessary to use the | same one twice In succession. As a feature of the combination blind words were interspersed at regular or vary- ing intervals, which, in translation, were of course discarded. When finally prepared for transmis- sion the dispatch was wholly unintel- ligible to the transmitting or receiving operator, and no case is recalled of the enemy having translated a Fedgral cipher dispatch. On the other hand, many of the rebel cipher dispatches which fell into our hands by capture or through our sples were translated by our cipher operators, and thus im- portant military information was se- cured by our commanding generals. The rebels, instead of adopting a plan similar to ours, which was at once s-- cret and speedy, made use of the crude | plan of transposing the letters of the | alphabet in various ways. | In some cases the hieroglyphic pfun | was adopted by the rebels, and it was this method which was followed in the instances referred to below. A far bolder plot w being lmtch‘r:d; in New York City, having for its im- | mediate object the seizure of two large | ocean steamers, when one or two days | out by rebel agents, who were to ship | as passengers or crew. The scheme | included also the shipment as freight of | crates, packages and hogsheads, osten- sibly containi merchand but . which in reality contained guns, small arms, ammunition, etc., for the use of the pirates after they had overpowered the loyal crew and obtained control of the ship. The seizure of two ocean steamers and their conversion into privateers would create dismay and consternalion] in the North, and would perhaps be followed by the capture of many small | craft, merchant vessels and Govern- ment transports, and possibly the de- struction of some of our seaport towns. Meanwhile the rebel government was actually having a large and varied is- sue of Confederate bonds engraned and printed almost within sight of the old tombstone in Trinity Church Yard, and communications on the subject of such bonds were passing to and fro between the rebel government in Richmond and its agents in New York City, the me- dium of these communications being the very same hieroglyphics which were carved on that old tombstone nearly one hundred years before. These deep-laid plots were fortunate- ly revealed to the Federal authorities in time to prevent their fulfillment. The date set for the seizure of the two ocean steamers was Christmas, 1863, and only,_fqur days previous 1o thaf A ' time the first of the two rebel ciphers was translated by the trio of War De- partment cipher operators, and the As- sistant Secretary of War, Mr. Charles A. Dana, started for New York at 7:30 p. m. the same day to confer with Gen- eral Dix, and before the date set for the seizure of the ocean vessels the rebel plotters and agents had been spotted, a watch set upon their move- ments, and within a week they had all been arrested, and millions ot rebel bonds seized and destroyed instead of being used in England and France to help pay for the rebel ships of war then being bullt in those countries. The history of these two rebel ciphers is as follows: They were each enclosed in an enve- lope addressed to Alexander Keith Jr., Halifax, Noya Scotia, and were mailed from New York City; the first one be- ing dated December 18, 1863, and the second one four days later. United States Consul Jackson at Halifax had previously reported that Keith was in frequent communication with rebel blockade runners and with rebel agents in the United States. The mails were therefore being closely watched, and when Abraham Wake- man, postmaster, discovered the enve- lope bearing Kelith's address, which was dropped in the New York postoffice on December 18, he promptly sent it to the Secretary of War, who, on seeing that the enclosure was in cipher, turned it over to the War Department clerks, who vainly puzzled over the mysterious signs for two days. On the third day the important docu- ment was turned over to the telegraph department and placed in the hands of the trio, who set to work with a de- termination to do what the War De- partment clerks had failed in doing. In my boyhood days I was for a short | period employed in the store of John Horne & Co., Pittsburg, and as one of their cost marks was based upon the thirteen prime characters taken from the two geometrical figures shown be- low, I was thus able to discern, per- haps more readily than my associates, the slight differences between the seve- ral characters of that serfes. The basis or foundation referred to is | as follows, the Arabic numerals and the dollar and cent mark being shown in their respective places: 1]213 $ 4 6 0 C 718l 9 Repeat By placing a dot in each of the thir- teen spaces all the letters of the alpha- bet can be represented by the above signs, thus: BEFORE SMOKING. Z % /‘A{L/ Z 7 i i 2 W Z AFTER ONE CIGARETTE o THE TRACINGS REPRESENTING THE PULSE WAVE ARE OF THE UTMOST VALUE IN DIAGNOSING A CASE. ment at the back of the instrument was then wound up, the strip inserted under the needle and a little spring was touched. Slowly the blackened strip traveled under thethrobbing needle and a zig-zag line was etched on the sur- face. “Pretty good!” said the doctor, ex- amining the action criticaily; “almost a normal action. A slight valvular weakness is indicated on the down stroke. Now, here's your drink,” he said, holding out the glass to the man, AFTER 40Z. WHI SKEBY. IRED OUT - or_ SLEEP. | who needed no second invitation, but swallowed the contents without so much as a wink. “Ah-h!"” he gurgled with deep satis- faction, beaming amiably upon the company. ‘‘Make all the tries ye like at this game, I'll stay.” In ten minutes the doctor readjusted the sphymograph to the happy man’s wrist and made the second experiment. This time the needle jumped back and forth at a lively pace and the result was an etching which showed faster SRR ollelolelofolelofelolofololelofelolofofooforoYorolooToololote Yottt Tt IOt T o T T oot oo o { HEART- ACTION DURING SLEEP CAN BE ACCURATELY DETERMINED AND THE PATIENT'S NERVE CONDITION ASCERTAINED. SLEER. and stronger beats. “The action of the heart, you see™ said the doctor, “is decidedly acceler- ated and the gquantity of blood forced into the arteries at each pulsation is greater.” “Weary Willie,” weary no longer, then departed and & gay young woman took his place, who declared, as she sat down, that she had never smoked a cigarette in all her life, but that she was quite willing to do it in the inter- est of science. The doctor obtalned a very good tracing of her pulse-wave, then hand- ed her the cigarette. While waiting for ihe nicotine to take effect Dr. Simon spoke of ‘the resuits of chloroform, ether, nitrous oxide gas and morphine upon the nervous -—stem as demon- strated by the pulse-waves. “The effect is similar in each case,” he said. “The entire nervous system is affected, and the heart is, of course, stimulated to quicker action.” Most opportunely to the subject in question, at that moment one of the doctor’s patients was announced, suf- fering from & piece of broken glass imbedded in the hand. A delicate op- eration seemed necessary and the pa- tient requested an oplate, When the coincidence of the occur- rence with the line of experiment was explained the patient of his own ac- cord suggested that a tracing of his pulse-wave should be taken when he was under the influence of chloroform. Long "before this the young woman had finished her cigarette and had ob- tained a successful tracing of her pulse-beat, which showed the influ- ence of even that small amount of nic- otine in her system. “The question whether nicotine af- fects the action of the heart is rather clearly demonstrated, is it not?” re- marked the doctor, “If one cigarette produces so marked a difference in the pulse of a healthy woman what must be the effect of constant smoking upon women of weaker physique, or with any heart difficulty? Any artificlal quickening of the heart action is inju- rious.” And the doctor calmly lighted a cigarette. “I have tracings of the pulse waves of thirty persons taken before and dur- ing natural sleep,” he continued. “You will notice that during natural sleep the wave Is slower, fainter and more reg- ular. After sleep, the nervous system being refreshed and strengtherfed, the tracing shows that the pulse is stronger and quicker. “During the hypnotic sleep,” contin- ued the doctor, his eyes brightening as he broached his favorite topic, ‘‘the pulse-wave denotes even greater regu- larity of the heart action and more complete relaxation of the nervous sys- tem than in sleep.” A hypnotic subject was present in the POO0OE0PPP000RPREPREEOCEEPPPOPOEE OOOOOO the Famous Secret a/'v/zers In the rebel cipher letter the words i signs shown, and as the letter e occurred twice, we followed the clew, with ‘limited success. S T Meantime my assoclates had found | according to instructions. other clews, there being. In fact, at least ten separate and distinct sefleslunder the Immediate supervision of Hil- of cipher characters used in the Keith | ton, who will act in good faith in conse- Cammack, hOWEVel", made the | q‘;fincc o{ the large amount he | will receive. letter. vital mistake of confinine himself to only one series for any given word. Had he varied the series of symbols, taking the characters from two or more different series to represent each word, the result of our efforts might have been far different. Together we la- bored for hours, at first with only a few detached words being revealed, but little by little the whole matter was de- ciphered. The following is an exact copy, and is all we had to work from: @ B—Ays¥eYp VeKROl = o o 8~ vuom——id) @D LXFA= WO P 2 N¥L) «—Qu¢acry rri@dax oK ¢ powSermnn ¥ NI AnfA ot tnz $ma AOOPonte DD (Justivna IGvPug matoust o xmuw—p — v — — e Xrgcuduaiz=osns Rrico=asgagdot:fomnmns = =} 0 et et O@ e sk 8O o i e e oo €3V)0 SuE 935730 ¢3C >0 LIasIxmmun 4]..“'.\ jéwaxe vVaPPacuy g ‘.,uulwwqeu uit Y2 0rNn vieyAarves e3<ratoosan AY)EO> IVFD nunckea Mg}flnm' =A et IAFTOAS = $1990 A wfe= bmoot = A= At me DO AR €O N @ & i Poomao T = <« ~ After we had translated the above hieroglyphics, the following is what ap- peared: NEW YORK, Dec. 18, 1863. Hon. J. P. Benjamin, Secretary of State, Richmond, Va.:" Willis is here. Ine two steamers will leave here about Christ- mas. Lamar and Bowers left here via Bermuda two weeks ago. Twelve thou- sand rifled muskets came duly to hand and were shipped to Halifax as in- structed. We will be able to seize the other two steamers as per programme. Trowbridge has followed the President’s orders. Weo will Bave Briggs under arrest before this reaches you. Cost § We want more money. ‘How shall we draw? Bills are forwarded to Slidell and rects recd. Write as before. 3. H. C. Two days after we had interpreted the first cipher dispatch another one, dated December 22, and also enclosed in an envelope bearing Keith’s address, was placed before us, and was quickly translated. This communication proved to be of almost equal Ilmportance, referring as it did to the fact that Confederate notes and bonds were being engraved and printed in New York City. “The second cipher was prepared in the same way as the first, and its translation is as follows: NEW YORK, Dec. 22, 1863. . Hon. Benjamin H. 1, Richmond, Ve L % two | Dear Sir: before this” are represented by | of the Treasury] that Hilton will have the | words: taken from the series last above | machines all finished and dies all cut | | done and the paper s superb. A part has | been shipped and balance will be forward- {ed fna | Rouses Point. | will come through to Albany and the Say to Memminger [Secretary | ready for shipping by the first of Janu- | ary.” The engraving of the plates_is su- perb. i hey will be ehipped via Halifax and all | The main part of the work has been | and | beautifully The work is ew days. Send some one to Nassau to receive and take the machines and paper tarough Florida. Write me at Halifax. I leave first week in January. Should Goodman arrive at Nassau piease send word by your agent that he is to await further in- structions. Yours truly, H. C. The following telegrams to the War Department, during the week following Mr. Dana's visit to General Dix, will show that no time was lost in hunting up the rebel gang and placing them under arrest: NEW YORK, 1 p. m., Dec. 29, 1863. Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War: I have this morning seen evidence which affords good ground for the beltef | that the United States......here is prob- ably fn full partnership with the rebel operators of this city. From long per- sonal knowledge of the individual I have no doubt he is perfectly capable of such treasonable conduct. C. A. D/ANA. NEW YORK CITY, Dec. 30, 1863. Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War: The man inside the Bank Note Company reports that the work is not be- | ing doneé there. He says they are capable | of it and informs me they have a branch establishment at Montreal, and that there | s no doubt but the work is being done there. Send the proper person to Montreal and | In my opinion the plates | Western road to Boston and by Cunard steamer to Halifax. ROBERT MURRAY, U. S. Marshal. NEW YORK, 5:30 p. m., Dec. 81, 1863. Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War: I have arrested Hilton and his partner and foreman and secured the plates for the rebel bonds, also &'s, 10's, 20's and §0's, Confederate notes. 1 have arrested the lithographer and printer and taken possession of Hilton's premises and the lithographer's and placed a guard over them until the morn- ing, and I have no doubt 1 shall get the machinery also. ROBERT MURRAY, U. S. Marshal. NEW YORK, January 1, 1864. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War: I secured machinery and dies this morning at 2 a. m., together with several millions of dollars In bonds and notes of various denominations. I am after the maker of the machinery and will gety him. From an intercepted letter I learfi that Cam- mack is in Havana. ROBERT MURRAY, U. 8. Marshal. .. In the present state of war when a telegraph operator is forwarding an official message he is profoundly ignor- ant of its meaning. The message is simply a jumble of letters or figures. The simplest form of cipher consists in representing the letters of the al- phabet by other letters: sometimes characters, figures or arbitrary signs are used. Alphab:t—a, b, ¢, 4, e, f, g, h, eta. Cipher— x, 8, ¢, 7, ¢, 0, A, 2 In this cipher the words “A bad semicolon being used to separate the | X; 83x? —?Ac | This method of secret writing s | very easily solved if the message is of | any length. The decipherer’s first busi- | ness is to classify the characters of the | secret message in the order of their fre- | quency. | In English the letter most often used The “password cipher” is based upon | some keyword or password. Any word may be chosen for the keyword, and it may consist of any number of letters. After the keyboard is fixed upon the ci- pher is made in the same manner as the one here illustrated. In the cipher here | given the keyword is “prudentia.” | After the letter “p” an alphabet is | written in order commencing with the | TME fat Lo Y 32705'1544°32.15.24°33 '35, 11 42 TYRANTTYRAN e e 44754 45 11 33 We e P LRt 42°18°33°14 76°69°57°35 0539088777 2275 WRITING A MESSAGE IN THE “NUMERICAL CIPHER." | \ t80NMoOoNGD A 24'43'34'33°32°34 33714 10 54 TRV RA N R 4444 5442 11 33 44 34 54 43 088 83 754367 77 5805 u» 76 69°57°55°65°59'68'87°77 22775 °68'87°8875°43°67°77°58 6596 44754742 1U33°44°44°54°42° 11°33°44°44°54.42° 11°33°44°44'54 42" | 32°15°15°44°32°15°24°33°35°11°42°24.43734°33 732734331411 '54. M EETM —— — DECIPHERING | NP AR i §-0 N'M O N D A V- A MESSAGE 1s e; then t is the next in the order of frequency. Next in their order of fre- quency oceur the letters a, o, n, {; then follows r. s, h; the next group consists of d and 1; then, in order, ¢, w, u, m, f.y.8pb; v, ki x4/ 2 Of course all single characters must represent a, I, or O. The double letters most frequently used are ll, oo, ff, ee, and ss. If we arrange in the order of | KEY FOR “TWO-WORD SQUARE CIPHER.” their frequency words of two letters most commonly used the list stands of, to, in, it, is, be, he, by, or, as, at, an and so. The commonest "vords of three letters are “the” and “and”; then fol- low for, are, but, all and not; of four hedge” would appear as follows, the letters, that,.with, from, have, this, they, and them, i next letter after “p” which is “q.’ next alphabet commences with o this letter follows “r.” Each of the | following alphabets is made in a simi- lar manner. In writing with this cipher the first word of the message should be written from the first cipher al- phabet; the secofid word from the sec- ond alphabet, and so on, repeating if | necessary. Suppose it were necessary | to write the sentence, “The spy is in camp.” “The"” written from the first alphabet is JXU; “spy” would be rep- sented (second alphabet) by KHQ, and | the entire sentence would look like this: JXU KHQ DN MR HFRU. 1 As In this cipher the same letter is | represented by different characters its | solution without a key is practically | impossible. | I will now illustrate a form of cipher which, as far as I know, has never been used. It might be called the “magic square cipher.” The key can be writ- ten from memory in a few minutes, and it has no complications. Below is an ordinary magic square based on the number 5. There are other magic squares that can be made with the same set of num- bers, but I have given the one most easily constructed. The rule for mak- ing magic squares is very simple, and may be found in the encyclopedias. For illustration the following sentence will be used: “Communicate with me to-morrow.” In the space in the magic square oc- cupied by the figure 1 is written the first letter of the sentence, “C,” the sec- ond letter “O,” is placed In the space where 2 is found; the third letter where 3 falls, and the remainder of the letters are similarly placed. The message ap- pears as in the illustration. Then the meseage I8 rewritten in one or more lines as Is convenient: EQISMMWWCMEUIOAT person of amiable looking young man who readily consented to an exper- iment. He sat at ease, his head resting upon the back and his hands upon the ar of the chair. First the sphygmogray was fastened to his wrist and the p wave was taken. It showed a no heart action. Next it was necessary to put hin a state of hypnosis in order to sh difference of the heart action bet natural and hypnotic sleep. Dr. S stood in front of him and gazed fix at the man, who seemed at once the influence of those great, black eyes. “Go to sleep,” commanded the doctor, pressing his fingers on the man’s f head. “You are going to sleep. asleep. Go deeper—deeper—de: Sure enough, the man was asiee breathing and the relaxed condition of his body showed it. “You are going still deeper as said the hypnotist, speaking in a sl monotonous tone. The man’s face became flushed and he breathed quickly. “You are a ton of lead. Your ar are heavy. Your legs are heavy heavy—heavy!"” The subject was sound asleep. The doctor occupied himself with ar- ranging the slips for the sphymograr speaking to the man at regular inter- vals. “Sleep as soundly, as deepl; you cam,” sald the doctor. “Sleepier drowsier, sleepier!” Then the subject breathed very quiet ly. He was in deep slumber. The dc tor raised the lids of his eyes. pils were contracted. showed a complete state of hypnosis. “Yes, he is in a good condition for the experiment,” said the doctor. First, however, he made a few tests to prove that the man was entirely hypnotized. “The most infallible proof of all, how- ever,” said Dr. Simon, “is that of the sphymograph. The pulse-waves cane not le.” 'The little slip glided quickly under the needle and showed the most wonderful tracing of all. The marks were regu- lar and flowing.. The up strokes were short and t. etching seemed merely a wavy line. 11 the nervous system is at rest,” said the doctor. PPEPEEPEEEEO Good Stories of Some Wer_y ?uzzliny Ciphers, N SGovernmen % Yihilist and Wercan tile. TCTRRNOOH. If the message does not fill the square irrevelant letters should be added to the fu’l.; amount. ere is a message written in a very interesting form of cryptography—the gridiron cipher: S H R U ERG METM AN AUE DINM BUSB EARNY — EY — oDT It is possible to prepare a cipher message in such a manner that the casual observer would suppose tr communication to be some commo! place note. One means of accomplish- ing this is by means of the “grill” cipher. The recipient has a piece of paper with certain spaces cut out. This is the “grill.” This i writing and through the opening cer- tain words appear—the words of the hidden message. A GRIDIRON USED IN THE “GRIDIRON CIPHER." : The person writing the message has a similar “grill,” and this is placed over 2 sheet ¢f blank paper and the secret message s written through the spaces. The “grill” is then removed, and care- fully devised words are added to give, apparently, a commonplace meaning to the whole missive. In the “two-word square” cipher is seen a form of eryptogram used by the English Government 300 years ago. One or two alphabetsare written in a square, and each letter is represented by two letters—the letters which appear oppo- site in the key words. In the illustra- tion glven A would be represented by OD or UI; R by 1M or PS. The word “army” in this cipher is OD PSUOII The kev words are previously agreed upen. 1